Tumblelog by Soup.io
Newer posts are loading.
You are at the newest post.
Click here to check if anything new just came in.

November 20 2009

Sigalontech
20:56

Suit over search-engine keywords tries new angle

(AP) -- A lawsuit in Wisconsin is bringing a fresh challenge to the practice of paying for keywords on Google and other search engines to boost one company's link over a rival's.
Tags: Technology
Sigalontech
20:53

Researcher says text proves Shroud of Turin real

(AP) -- A Vatican researcher claims a nearly invisible text on the Shroud of Turin proves the authenticity of the artifact revered as Jesus' burial cloth. The claim made in a new book by historian Barbara Frale drew immediate skepticism from some scientists, who maintain the shroud is a medieval forgery.
Sigalontech
20:51

Atomic-level Snapshot Catches Protein Motor in Action (w/ Video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- The atomic-level action of a remarkable class of ring-shaped protein motors has been uncovered by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory using a state-of-the-art protein crystallography beamline at the Advanced Light Source (ALS). These protein motors play pivotal roles in gene expression and replication, and are vital to the survival of all biological cells, as well as infectious agents, such as the human papillomavirus, which has been linked to cervical cancer.
Tags: Biology
Sigalontech
20:50

Circulation of LHC Beams Could Resume in Earnest over the Weekend

The Large Hadron Collider , the world's most powerful particle accelerator, is drawing near to its long-awaited reboot. More than a year after the European collider's initial start-up was quashed by a helium leak caused by a faulty electrical connection , particle beams have been injected into the collider, known as the LHC, and may be guided fully through its rings in the coming hours. [More]

Add to digg Add to StumbleUpon Add to Reddit Add to Facebook Add to del.icio.us Email this Article

Sigalontech
20:27

How Long Can a Nuclear Reactor Last?

Could nuclear power plants last as long as the Hoover Dam?

Increasingly dependable and emitting few greenhouse gases, the U.S. fleet of nuclear power plants will likely run for another 50 or even 70 years before it is retired -- long past the 40-year life span planned decades ago -- according to industry executives, regulators and scientists.

[More]

Add to digg Add to StumbleUpon Add to Reddit Add to Facebook Add to del.icio.us Email this Article
Sigalontech
20:24

Tapering a Free-Electron Laser to Extract More Juice

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from the NSLS and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) have demonstrated a technique that could be used to significantly improve the quantity and quality of light produced from a free-electron laser (FEL) - a source that provides pulses of light that can be 1,000 times shorter than those at conventional storage ring light sources.
Tags: Physics
Sigalontech
20:00

CERN atom-smasher restarts after 14-month hiatus: official

The world's biggest atom-smasher, shut down after its inauguration in September 2008 amid technical faults, restarted on Friday, a spokesman for the European Organisation for Nuclear Research said.
Tags: Physics
Sigalontech
19:56

Stem cell restrictions fail in Nebraska

A proposed resolution to restrict human embryonic stem cell research at the University of Nebraska has failed. The University's Board of Regents today split their votes 4-4, defeating a measure that would have limited research to embryonic stem cell lines approved under former President George W. Bush. The resolution needed a majority of five votes to pass.

"That probably settles the question for the time being," Thomas Rosenquist, vice chancellor for research at the University of Nebraska Medical School in Omaha, told Nature. "It's permission to go ahead and take part in 21st-century research with embryonic stem cells."

Nebraska law prohibits the destruction of embryos for research. But the state does allow scientists to follow federal standards in embryonic stem cell research. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama removed government funding restrictions on new stem-cell lines derived from embryos left over from fertility treatment, and an advisory panel is currently mulling over which of hundreds of potential new cell lines to approve.

The governing board's decision "is a big relief", says Angie Rizzino, a stem cell biologist at the University of Nebraska Medical School. "But I fear that they'll be back in a year or two trying to put a block on embryonic stem cell research again."

Sigalontech
19:51

Possible link studied between childhood abuse and early cellular aging

Children who suffer physical or emotional abuse may be faced with accelerated cellular aging as adults, according to new research from Butler Hospital and Brown University.
Sigalontech
19:27

Ultra-Powerful Laser Reproduces How Star's Jets Travel through Interstellar Space

(PhysOrg.com) -- A multi-trillion-watt laser at the University of Rochester has simulated a stellar jet -- an outpouring of matter from a fledgling star -- with unprecedented realism.
Tags: Physics
Sigalontech
19:16

Istanbul Opens World’s Largest Earthquake-Safe Building

bigairport

The world’s largest seismically isolated building, the new international terminal at Istanbul’s Sabiha Gökçen Airport, is now complete and open for business.

Stretching across more than 2 million square feet, the terminal doesn’t sit directly on the soil, but rather on more than 300 isolators, bearings that can move side-to-side during an earthquake. The whole building moves as a single unit, which prevents damage from uneven forces acting on the structure.

“What an isolation system does is that it enables the building to move through large displacements in unison, and in doing that, you absorb earthquake energy,” said Atila Zekioglu, the engineer at the firm Arup, who designed the building.

Earthquakes accelerate buildings laterally, whipping them back and forth. Isolators (see photo below) slow down the motion of the building. In the case of the new terminal, the building will only have to withstand one-fifth of the acceleration that it would have had to without the earthquake proofing.

anatolianblock

A devastating magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck Istanbul on August 17, 1999 killing 17,000 people and causing billions of dollars in property damage. Scientists estimate it’s more likely than not that the city will be hit by another large quake in the next 30 years. Istanbul is located near the confluence of the Arabian, African, and Eurasian plates. The North Anatolian Fault runs less than 15 miles south of the city. So, like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and a host of other Pacific Rim cities, Istanbul’s builders and planners have to take major earthquake precautions.

Luckily, designing structures for that kind of performance has become cheaper and easier. Increased computing enables better simulations of how buildings will act when an earthquake hits.

Zekioglu and his team ran their building designs through 14 different simulations of earthquakes.

“What we have done over the years is that there are many tests going around the globe in terms of shake tables, testing labs, and what we do is we take that data… test the ability of our seismic simulation software,” he said.

This software, called Dyna, was originally developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the 1970s. It can be used to model what will happen to materials under all kinds of conditions from car crashes to earthquakes to bomb blasts.

The software has allowed engineers like Zekioglu to go beyond simply satisfying the building codes to designing buildings that will really meet the objectives of the structure’s owners. You don’t just want an airport (or a hospital) to stay standing after an earthquake, you want it to be functional.

The Istanbul project is quite similar to what was done with the San Francisco Airport’s international terminal, said Michael Constantinou, a seismic isolation expert at State University of New York at Buffalo, but it uses a newer kind of seismic isolation device.

“This is one of the first projects, at the time they started this thing, to use this advancement,” Constantinou said.

The new type, triple friction pendulum isolators manufactured by Earthquake Protection Systems in Vallejo, are more compact and can reduce the cost of constructing a building, he said. Many buildings, including three new hospitals in the San Francisco Bay Area, are now incorporating the new isolators.

Constantinou also highlighted a more general advantage that seismically isolated buildings have: They are actually easier to design because it’s very difficult to quantify how and why a structure will collapse.

“You are designing so that the structure will remain undamaged, and that’s much easier to understand,” he said.

The new terminal is designed to withstand an earthquake as strong as 8.0.

sliders

Images: 1) The new terminal/ARUP. 2) Seismic situation near Istanbul/USGS. 3) The triple pendulum slider/ARUP.

See Also:

WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and green tech history research site; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.

Sigalontech
19:14

Sushi DNA Tests Reveal Fraud

tuna_roll_dna

A biologist walks into a sushi bar and orders some tuna. What does he get? Escolar, a nasty fish with buttery flesh that can cause bizarre episodes of diarrhea, accompanied by a waxy intestinal discharge.

It’s not a joke. It happened five times to the same scientists during a brief research project. The results of that study were published Wednesday in PLOS One.

“A piece of tuna sushi has the potential to be an endangered species, a fraud or a health hazard,” wrote the authors. “All three of these cases were uncovered in this study.”

The team of researchers from Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History ordered tuna from 31 sushi restaurants and then used genetic tests to determine the species of fishes in those dishes. More than half of those eateries misrepresented, or couldn’t clarify the type of fish they were mongering. Several were selling endangered southern bluefin tuna.

Although their results were shocking, exposing sloppy sushi joints wasn’t their main goal. The scientists were trying to improve on a new species-identification technique, called DNA barcoding. A coalition of labs has been collecting fish, reading their genes and uploading the information to a database called FISH-BOL.

Their goal is to build a catalog of every fish species on earth so that anyone with a handheld DNA reader could definitively identify fish within minutes. Wildlife officials could use that technology to spot-check fish markets, and fine people who are selling protected species.

Right now, the FISH-BOL database is roughly 20 percent complete, but zooligsts can’t seem to agree upon the best way to condense the genetic information from each fish into a concise signature. That’s where this study comes into play. By checking 14 carefully selected spots on a gene called cox1 and matching them up with the database, the scientists could accurately identify any kind of tuna.

Citation: Lowenstein JH, Amato G, Kolokotronis S-O, “The Real maccoyii: Identifying Tuna Sushi with DNA Barcodes – Contrasting Characteristic Attributes and Genetic Distances.” PLoS ONE 4, 11, 2009, e7866.

Photo: Spicy tuna roll
stuart_spivack/Flickr

See Also:

Sigalontech
19:06

We're off then: The evolution of bat migration

(PhysOrg.com) -- Not just birds, but also a few species of bats face a long journey every year. Researchers at Princeton University in the U.S. and at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell, Germany studied the migratory behaviour of the largest extant family of bats, the so-called "Vespertilionidae" with the help of mathematical models. They discovered that the migration over short as well as long distances of various kinds of bats evolved independently within the family.
Tags: Biology
Sigalontech
19:05

Novel Nova: Stellar Blast Powered by Helium May Leave a Tantalizing Remnant

A stellar explosion known as a nova that was detected in 2000 formed a two-lobed shell of material ejected from the star. Shaped like a bow tie, it continues to swell at great velocity. But, curiously, the coat of ejecta flowing outward from the star lacks hydrogen, the most common gas in the universe. [More]

Add to digg Add to StumbleUpon Add to Reddit Add to Facebook Add to del.icio.us Email this Article

Sigalontech
18:37

'Frankenstein' fix lets asteroid mission cheat death

The beleaguered Hayabusa asteroid probe is back on track to return to Earth after ground controllers cobbled together a working engine from two dead ones


Sigalontech
18:16

Researchers identify role of gene in tumor development, growth and progression

Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center and VCU Institute of Molecular Medicine researchers have identified a gene that may play a pivotal role in two processes that are essential for tumor development, growth and progression to metastasis. Scientists hope the finding could lead to an effective therapy to target and inhibit the expression of this gene resulting in inhibition of cancer growth.
Sigalontech
18:08

Ghostly Bones of Galactic Feast Revealed

centaurusa

A new infrared image of the galaxy Centaurus A reveals the gassy, ghastly bones of a galaxy that it consumed several hundred million years ago.

The parallelogram of stars leftover from the collision had been obscured by dust. But using new processing techniques in the near-infrared part of the spectrum, European Southern Observatory astronomers were able to glimpse the leftovers of the cosmic dinner.

“There is a clear ring of stars and clusters hidden behind the dust lanes, and our images provide an unprecedentedly detailed view toward it,” said Jouni Kainulainen, in a paper on the new data visualized in the image. “Further analysis of this structure will provide important clues on how the merging process occurred and what has been the role of star formation during it.”

The black hole lurking in the center of Centaurus A, 11 million light-years away, is 50 times as massive as the one at the center of the Milky Way. It’s one of the most active source of radio waves in the universe, which is why astronomers have pointed all kinds of telescopes at it and eventually revealed the basic features of the galaxy that Centaurus A had consumed.

Image: ESO using the New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory.

See Also:

WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and green tech history research site; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.

Sigalontech
18:00

Today on New Scientist: 20 November 2009

Today's stories on newscientist.com, at a glance, including: the rise of the tiny medibots, the colliders that will follow the LHC, and an interview with Belle de Jour


Sigalontech
17:50

Collider collisions draw near!

LHC.jpgIt's Friday evening, time once again for the "refresh game", where I sit on the CERN website waiting to find out what terrorism/food/drink crisis will befall the Large Hadron Collider next (TGB's Daniel Cressey is putting his money on a badger from the future quantum mechanically tunneling his way into the beamline).

At the moment, though, it's all looking pretty good! Commissioning of the machine should be completed any minute now, and the physicists and engineers in charge of the LHC could begin injecting beams of protons into the machine tonight. Optimistically, we could be about a week or two away from collisions.

Well, unless the United Nations intervenes. A cleverly-named group of LHC critics called conCERNed (get it? Because the LHC is at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which is shortened to CERN in French? And CERN is right there in the word? Oh never mind), have filed a complaint with the UN's Human Rights Committee warning that the LHC might destroy the world. If true that would, it seem, infringe on a human right or two.

conCERNed would like to see the formation of an agency similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to regulate particle accelerators. But I wouldn't necessarily expect this to stop collisions in the coming weeks. Given what I've seen of IAEA diplomacy, even if the UN decides to form such an agency, it will take most of the LHC's first physics run just to draw up an agenda for its inaugural meeting.

Stay tuned for more updates next week!

CERN

Sigalontech
17:50

Belle de Jour: On science and prostitution

The professional scientist and former prostitute Brooke Magnanti told her agent, "If New Scientist asks for an interview, I'll do it." We did ask


Older posts are this way If this message doesn't go away, click anywhere on the page to continue loading posts.
Could not load more posts
Maybe Soup is currently being updated? I'll try again automatically in a few seconds...
Just a second, loading more posts...
You've reached the end.